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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26548867">the wedding vows of the winter court</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma'>bokutoma</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>sylvix week 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fae, Curses, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Eye Trauma, M/M, Mild Gore, Quests, Reincarnation, Sylvix Week (Fire Emblem), Wedding Night, fairy courts, i mean. i think it's mild., iron and the fae, it's not touched upon that much</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:00:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,475</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26548867</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>for all of sylvain of the winter court's life, he has loved felix, human though he may be. as he closes in on a thousand years and hundreds of lifetimes, he proposes, and felix says yes. </p><p>but to be married in the eyes of the faerie courts, he and his beloved must undertake quests: felix must rid the winter court's territory of the half-feral iron-touched, and sylvain must find and return the eye of the boar, lost millennia ago. otherwise, they may never be united.</p><p>(started for sylvix week day 1: weddings / urban fantasy / future)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>sylvix week 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the wedding vows of the winter court</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this was supposed to be a oneshot. i failed</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sylvain has been courting Felix for what feels like a thousand years. Perhaps it has been; he lost count somewhere after 500 and Felix's twentieth lifetime. He has an unfortunate tendency to die young, which really puts a damper on the whole romance thing.</p><p>He knows how the Winter Court sees his inclinations; if one wants a lifetime of promise, a fellow faerie would be a far easier and more readily available match, relatively speaking. Beyond that, though, it's far more common to play the field, as these modern humans are so fond of saying, and based on his history, his contemporaries in the court believe he should continue in this manner instead of tying himself to a human, and, by extension, making him one of their number.</p><p>It's the latter point that really eats at them, he knows. Most of them don't care what he does so long as he smiles prettily and stomps out any threat of attack from the Summer Court or the iron-touched. Only his father hopes for anything different, and that is mostly so he marries a lovely Autumn Court noble, new though they are, and tie their allegiance to those of the snow.</p><p>The margrave of all people should know that marriage does not equate to loyalty. He was the damn fool who took a Summer Court duchess as a wife and sired Miklan. His first wife tried to kill him after that and received her own gift for her efforts, and Miklan is running around somewhere in the human countryside, iron-touched and more than a little crazy, so Sylvain thinks he really doesn't have any room to talk.</p><p>It's Dimitri who allows the courtship, though, and for all that Margrave Gautier is a fool, he's not about to argue with the High King. Since Felix came of age, Sylvain has visited him, hoping to imbue him with memories of their positive times together.</p><p>As it turns out, Felix had known him before he'd even had to say a word.</p><p>
  <em>"You," he snarls, pretty face twisted in a scowl Sylvain hasn't seen the likes of since he'd gotten them kicked out of Felix's favorite watering hole in the '50s. "I know you."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Well, that works out pretty well, considering how intimately I know you," he replies, dropping a careless wink.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He should have known how that would end.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>One future bruise ready to bloom on his upper arm and ten separate apologies later, he kicks his feet up onto Felix's coffee table. "So what was that about knowing me? You've never known me before."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I've dreamed of you."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He isn't expecting the blush that rests high on Felix's cheekbones, delightful and familiar to him though it might be. "Oh? I'm flattered, sweet. I hadn't expected you to be taken in by my charm quite so soon."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix's furious flush deepens, which means he is at least partially right. How interesting. "Shut up. You know it isn't like that."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Do I?" he all but purrs, relishing in the way Felix subconsciously sways toward him. "I'm not sure I do."</em>
</p><p>That had been a good night, and not in the way that nights between instances of Felix tended to be.</p><p>It's only within Felix's last three lifetimes that Sylvain has introduced him to court. This thing between them had still been so fragile, only a stolen decade here and there to tide him over. Restarting every time is not the easiest way to build a relationship.</p><p>Here and now, though, Felix is twenty-five and has known him for <em>all</em> of his lives. There had been no need to jog his memory; as it turns out, he is exceptionally good at holding grudges through lifetimes. Even when it's turned against him, it might be one of the traits Sylvain likes best.</p><p>Two lifetimes ago, Felix had been twenty-two and angry when Sylvain had made the mistake of introducing him to his father.</p><p>
  <em>"Margrave," his love had said, slipping into the bow they had practiced until it was natural. "A pleasure to-"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What is this?" Luther Gautier, Margrave of the Winter Sprites, is an intimidating man, and when he levels the full force of that gaze on Sylvain, he remembers once again what it is to fear. "I did not think teaching gifts how to mimic their betters was a part of typical etiquette."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix's spine goes ramrod straight before Sylvain can even taste sulfurous rejection. "I didn't take nobility that's lasted this long to be the kind composed of a bunch of sniveling bastards."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ice creeps along the ground, a living, hungry creature, but even as Sylvain shepherds Felix back from whence they came, his love does not break the margrave's arrogant, challenging stare until he has to.</em>
</p><p>One lifetime ago, when the imprint of Sylvain had begun to take root in Felix's mind once more, Felix suggests skipping the foreplay altogether and heading straight for Dimitri. Sylvain is reluctant, of course - look at what had happened when his father had laid eyes upon him - but Felix is insistent, and Sylvain is terrible at saying no to him.</p><p>
  <em>"Presenting Lord Sylvain José Gautier, heir to the Winter Sprites, and his companion!" the herald calls, but it's Felix's icy look and not Sylvain's that causes him to amend his announcement. "Felix Hugo Fraldarius!"</em>
</p><p>At least he has a suitably pompous name, <em>Sylvain thinks, and for once, Felix might be thankful for it as well. He can feel the tremble of Felix's hand where it is tucked through his arm, but there is nothing save hard determination in his face.</em></p><p>
  <em>"Relax, love," he whispers. "His Majesty rarely bites."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Sometimes I wish you could lie," Felix whispers back, the curve of his horsebow mouth drawing down.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Then they are marching forward, graceful and militant in the subtle dance that defines their relationship. Implausible as it might seem to the outside, it's not so different from that of most fae.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain had generally warned Felix of the image that would await him on initially laying eyes upon the king, but all but the most weathered fae react in some small capacity to the sight. Were he a creature given to poetry even at the expense of friendship, he might have detailed how Dimitri languishes on his golden throne, the only spark of warmth against so many blues and grays. He could have waxed poetic about his oldest friend's noble form, sturdy as a mountain with all the agile grace of a lion.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Most of all, though, he would have warned Felix of the sunken cavity of King Blaiddyd's right eye, the rot and ruin creeping from that bloodied, quivering cavern like frostbite. Though it's only the space where his eye should be that sags and gapes like an open wound, he is decaying like the worst of his season, tearaway flesh spiderwebbed with blackened, curling veins.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He would have, but he could not, for every fae that had laid eyes upon the High King and every single one of his ancestors for as long as living memory served had sworn an oath most solemn to not speak of the summer-spun curse that plagued the Blaiddyd line.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix, though, does not pause in his stride for even a moment as they reach the dais in the center of the High King's court. Even as blood and pus collect at the ragged edges of his false eye and drip onto the crisp snow that piles around King Dimitri, staining it a putrid, crusty red, Felix merely fishes a wadded up napkin from the pocket of his coat and offers it up with the same jagged kindness it had taken centuries for Sylvain to comprehend.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The court gasps, but Dimitri laughs, mirthful and true.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I like him," he says. To Felix: "I like you."</em>
</p><p>It had been two years of king-sanctioned bliss before an iron-touched had killed Felix just as Sylvain was figuring out how to propose. Perhaps it had been meant to destabilize the Winter Court, cripple one of the High King's staunchest supporters with guilt and grief.</p><p>It had been poor luck to choose a man who would not stay dead.</p><p>In this one, though, Sylvain had proposed under the branches of the gnarled yew that bred death like the commodity it had become, and Felix had kissed him so soundly that he'd almost wanted to taste a berry just to see if death could inspire any further emotion.</p><p>The date is set for the winter solstice: favorites that they are (of Dimitri, at least), they've been gifted that sacred day.</p><p>The only problem is the quest.</p><p>Dowries, varied though they might be, are not exactly uncommon for humans, but they tend to come in the form of money and goods.</p><p>For the faeries of the courts, commitments tied together for that long are forged in blood.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>twitter: @kingblaiddyd</p></blockquote></div></div>
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